


but they're just old light

by arrows



Category: Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: Canon Compliant, Episode: e025 One Year Later, M/M, Stargazing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-22
Updated: 2013-08-22
Packaged: 2017-12-24 08:14:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 590
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/937671
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/arrows/pseuds/arrows
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After Carlos comes the stars, and Cecil begins to wonder again.</p>
            </blockquote>





	but they're just old light

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired greatly by [this fanmix](http://8tracks.com/jupiters/we-understand-the-lights), which I completely recommend. This is my first fic in the WTNV fandom. Comment if you like it, please!

Cecil had grown up in Night Vale, and before books had been made illegal he'd read about the stars. Oh, they sounded so wonderful, little dots of light from so far away above him; but when he looked up, there was only void. Blank black space where there should be _something_. He went to the library, then, because librarians weren't bloodthirsty yet at that time. "Why don't we have stars?" he asked, but nobody answered.

He asked a lot of questions and got a lot of nothings in return. And he began to collect those nothings, and recorded them all in a book. Someday, he would ask again, and he would be older and people would listen. They'd listen. Right?

\--

Sometimes Cecil still looked up at the sky, but not often. He wasn't allowed to question anymore. His book of nothings was hidden in a desk drawer while he tried to forget about it. There was no use questioning things he couldn't change, he told himself. It was dumb.

He had his show that most of the town listened to, and that should have been enough. There, he could at least try to find answers, or to answer things for others.

Then Carlos came. Perfect, beautiful Carlos; and Carlos _questioned_. He questioned, and he disagreed, and he wondered. His curiosity was one of the things that made him so beautiful.

Cecil fell in love instantly, and that night, he dug up his book of nothings and swore to start wondering again.

\--

_Curse this town, that saw Carlos die. Curse me. Curse it all._

Cecil could swear he could feel his heart shatter. He looked down at the trophy and a sob escaped him-- beautiful Carlos, gone-- he can't, he can't, he can't accept it.

Carlos can't be gone.

Then the stupid pre-recorded commercial about science -- who _cares_ about science with Carlos gone?! -- comes on, and Cecil throws his headphones across the room.

Carlos.

His eyes close and he grips to trophy tighter, as if it were Carlos himself. He holds it like Carlos isn't dead and it's all fake, it can't be real.

Suddenly-- _Cecil, Carlos is alive._ He opens his eyes and soaks in the new information, crying again, but tears of joy now.

\--

"I used to think it was setting at the wrong time,’ he said, ‘but then I realized that time doesn’t work in Night Vale, and that none of the clocks are real. Sometimes things seem so strange, or malevolent, and then you find that, underneath, it was something else altogether, something pure, and innocent."

He looked over at Carlos, his beautiful Carlos who was _alive_ , and felt his heart soar.

After a moment, his gaze turned upwards, and he held in a gasp. Small dots of light scattered the sky, separate from the usual shimmering light above the Arby's. Where that light was more of a mass of glowing bits, this was pieces of the universe splashed across the Earth so that humans may look up and tell the silent galaxies their dreams and hopes and fears. The mysteries of the world must have granted Night Vale the stars in honor of Carlos, Cecil thought, though he knows it sounds strange.

"I know what you mean," he replied, still fixated on the stars. He rested his head on Carlos' shoulder and smiled as the sky darkened and more stars came.

That night, he found the page with _Why are there no stars?_ in his book of nothings, and wrote _Because Carlos wasn't here._ beneath it.


End file.
